“What do you think?”  the figure asked while standing in the shadows of the room.  He looked up from the book he had been reading at the vaguely discernible figure in the corner.

“I don't know what to think.”  he sighed, closing the book and rubbing his temples with a tired look on his face. “First her aptitude, now this...”

“She is definitely the perfect candidate for- that...”  the shadowed person said.

“But this makes it more difficult, we have extensive knowledge on any and every familiar and how to suppress them, but this this is-”

“New? Interesting?”

“Aggravating- we should have moved before the summoning.”

“I find this to be more fun this way.”

“It might be fun for you but there is a lot resting on my shoulders, if this doesn't work...”

“Then you won't be needing the head attop those shoulders.”  Laughed the shadowy figure.

“I don't find that very funny.” he said, still rubbing his temples.

“No? I didn't expect you to, your taste in jokes is just off...”

“My taste?”  he looked up, but found himself in the room alone, the shadowy figure had disappeared just as quickly as it had shown up. “My taste is just fine you freak.”  he muttered to himself before once again burying himself in his research.

[The waffle witches class]

“No.”  Leon said, he refused.

“Please?” Lira pleaded with him.  Almost every other familiar had performed the task, the only ones that hadn't were the ones to stupid to understand what their masters wanted.

And then there was Leon.

He simply refused.

“What am I a dog?” he growled.

“I just want you to pick it up...”

“No, you can fetch your own god damn ball.” he said crossing his arms.  The task was a simple one, designed to help work on the communication between the conjurer and the familiar.  All he had to do was pick up the ball and carry it back to her and place it in a basket.

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“And you can tell that waffle eating bitch faced teacher that if she so much as smirks at me one more time I will personally shove them down her throat and watch her die.”

“Three years Leon, three years.”  she said looking at him with pleading eyes. Several people were snickering at the two of them, one leaning up against the wall the other pleading for the task of picking up a ball and carrying it back to a basket to be done.

“For this it will become two years, if I have to do demeaning tasks like this then we are shortening the time.”  At this point Lira was ready to agree to almost anything to get him to finish the task.

He walked over and picked up the ball, only to once again notice the smile of what had to be his least favorite woman in the world right now.  He knew she had came up with this idea as punishment for the actions that had happened yesterday.

Walking over he palmed the small blue ball and picked it up.  It had a surprising amount of weight to it for such a small item.  Turning around he went to put it in the other basket some 20 yards away. Only to find the ball was increasing in weight substantially with every step he was taking.

That woman was smiling with a pleased look not hidden at all on her face, and based on the snickers of the majority of the class they were also in on the joke.

So that was how it was going to be huh?

He casually strode forward.  Each step making the ball double in weight, at the end of ten steps his feet were already sinking into the hard compact earth of the courtyard, but even with this he kept walking.

Around half way there the grass was replaced with a cobble stone path, and as he stepped on the bricks they started to crack.

Lira’s face went stiff as she realized what was happening.  

Someone had cursed the ball.

Surprisingly enough however Leon was not showing any sign of slowing as he walked, even though each step was sinking him into the ground and the ball must have weighed almost a thousand pounds at this point.

He arrived at the foot of the basket, at this point all of the snickers had stopped, he simply stood there, and lifted his arm horizontally holding the massively heavy object suspended over the basket.

Looking back at the teacher he smiled, the vein was back on her forehead, showing how great her displeasure was.  He let go of the ball, which promptly fell to the ground inside the basket with an unbelievably loud thud.

The bottom of the basket was destroyed, and the ball itself had sunk down a good two feet into the ground from the impact.

The teacher was not looking like she was in to happy of a mood, and without even breaking a sweat Leon went back to leaning up against the wall.

“Rumumlur ssekunss wie woll aull lu srauzulonj si shu Turnos auruau siin si phaucr aull shu shonjs wie nuuk...”  she said, Leon looked over at Lira for a translation.

“She said we will be going to Ternis two days from now and we need to make sure we are packed for the trip.”

“Ternis?”  he asked.

“It is an untamed wildlands where we can get some training, there are many magical beasts and other creatures there, and it is important to know how to cast spells in the heat of battle.”  her cheeks darkened a little. “It is also to em, get to know your familiar better...”

Leon smiled at the girl looking at him, she was awfully cute, and the way she looked away shyly like that, it reminded him, reminded him of-

Her.

Leon’s vision flashed, and he was no longer standing in front of Lira in the school courtyard, but rather standing in a barren red landscape.  Turning around he found her. She looked like Lira, or maybe Lira looked like her, he couldn't know, he might never know.

She looked up at him and smiled, her silver hair parting to reveal those purple eyes, and two small curling horns set at her temples curved forward protecting her pretty forehead.

“Leon,”  she said softly, with a smile.

“Who?”  he asked, she looked at him with a loving smile.

So soft.

So tender.

He wanted to go over and hold her forever. Never let go.

Ever.

He started to move forward but found his feet trapped in the hard blood red ground.

“Leon, I lo-”  she started, before coughing up blood. It slowly dribbled out of her mouth, and tears of blood started running down her face.

She smiled one last time.

Before falling over and never moving again.  Leon stared at the corpse in shock and horror, he could have helped, he should have been able to do something.

Anything.

With an earth shattering scream of a man who had just had his heart ripped out he collapsed to the ground, and lost consciousness.